The paper analyzes the joint determination of wives' earnings and labor force participation over the life cycle given the interruptions in wives' work careers. The interruptions affect the profitability of the investment in human capital, which in turn determines earnings. The earnings prospects...

The paper analyzes the joint determination of wives' earnings and labor force participation over the life cycle given the interruptions in wives' work careers. The interruptions affect the profitability of the investment in human capital, which in turn determines earnings. The earnings prospects...

We analyze an equilibrium search model with three sources for wage and unemployment differentials among workers with the same (observed) human capital but different appearance (race): unobserved productivity, search intensities, and discrimination due to an appearance-based employer disutility...

In the 1960 cohort, American men and women graduated from college at the same rate, and this was true for Whites, Blacks and Hispanics. But in more recent cohorts, women graduate at much higher rates than men. To understand the emerging gender education gap, we formulate and estimate a model of...